What the centre is for · Guide
What the centre is for in Salisbury: the practical guide
Everything below is the sort of thing you would want to know before the drive rather than after it.
The last one is the one parents actually buy. Children remember the day they drove an excavator far longer than they remember most afternoons.
A Salisbury school holiday runs out of ideas by about day three. This is a day-three answer rather than a day-one one.
What it actually is
Educational is doing a lot of quiet work in that list. Levers, timing and patience are a curriculum nobody has to announce.
Those are ordinary words until you watch a child work out a bucket for the first time, and then they are just a description of what happened.
Who it suits
The centre describes its aim in four parts: inspiration and creativity, safety and care, educational games and activities, and creating lasting memories.
Let the child choose what to do first even when it is the thing you would have chosen last. The order matters less than the choosing.
What to expect
The last one is the one parents actually buy. Children remember the day they drove an excavator far longer than they remember most afternoons.
Educational is doing a lot of quiet work in that list. Levers, timing and patience are a curriculum nobody has to announce.
Before you go
Those are ordinary words until you watch a child work out a bucket for the first time, and then they are just a description of what happened.
Photograph the machine as well as the child. In two years you will have forgotten what the room looked like.
Questions parents ask
What is the centre aiming for?
Inspiration and creativity, safety and care, educational play, and days children remember.
What are the opening hours?
10:00 AM to 8:00 PM Monday to Saturday, and 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM on Sunday.
Where is New Life Entertainment?
Two centres: 433 Opry Mills Drive, Nashville TN 37214, and 8111 Concord Mills Blvd, Concord NC 28027.
Planning your visit in Salisbury
Plenty of the families in the room on a weekday morning have come from somewhere like Salisbury. Nobody is local to a mall attraction; everybody has driven.
Agree the leaving time before you walk in, out loud, to the child. Announcing it later sounds like a punishment; agreeing it first sounds like a plan.
Bring less than you think. Coats and bags are the part of the visit nobody enjoys managing.
Coming in from Salisbury with more than one child, the useful thing to know is that the room does not need to be rationed - there is more than one thing to do at the same time.
The practical details
- XCAV ZONE — 433 Opry Mills Drive, Nashville TN 37214: four child-operated machines over a ball pit.
- ICE PARK — 8111 Concord Mills Blvd, Concord NC 28027: a real rink with bumper cars on the ice.
- Opening hours — 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM Monday to Saturday, 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM on Sunday.
- Phone — +1 (424) 387-6232 · +1 (615) 968-4925
- E-mail — info@newlife-entertainment.com
If a visit needs planning around a date, a group or a long drive, the centre is easiest to reach by phone: +1 (424) 387-6232 or +1 (615) 968-4925.